Buying a House is Like Riding a Bike... Ding Ding!

“If you can survive buying a home together, you can survive anything together.”

That’s a quote from our realtor who sensed that my fiancé and I were at our wits end with one another as we were debating “to bid or not to bid”. (If you’re dying to know... we bid)

Buying a house is so much more than just buying something with a roof that you can live under. When you buy a house you’re buying responsibility, you’re buying a new chapter to your life and you’re buying some uncertainty. I bet you didn’t know that uncertainty can come with such a huge price tag.

I was talking with one of my closest friends the other day who is also embarking on her first time house hunt and we were commiserating over how much you need to know when buying real estate and that no one ever really prepares you for what you’re about to go through. I’m a smart gal, but during this process, I’ve never felt so stupid... if I had a dollar for every sentence I started with “I know this may be a dumb question, but...” when talking to our realtor and broker, I would have already paid off our mortgage. It’s almost like the industry wants to haze first time buyers and once you’ve made it through, you’re officially in the cool club and have figured out all the insider secrets – I hope there is a secret handshake we find out about at closing.

So my fiancé and I are embarking on our last leg of the home buying process, which for me, has been kind of like riding a bike – its really tough and confusing at first, and you may be left with some scars (my scar is the memory forever etched in my mind of hearing how much closing costs would be – ouch!), but when you finally get it all down, you cruise to the finish. Now, unlike bike riding, I have no intention to hop up on the real estate bike seat again for at least another 5 years because this was all one wild ride that I don’t have the stamina to do again any time soon, but when I’m ready to kick up the kickstand, it will be easy to pick back up again.

My real estate bike was a tandem one as I ventured into this experience with my soon-to-be husband, and if you’re riding solo, I must give you major kudos because it can get pretty scary out on the road alone. However, riding tandem isn’t always that easy especially when you and your partner aren’t always equally matched – I remember trying to rent a tandem bike with my dad while we were on vacation on Mackinac Island... I was about 8 years old and he was about 150 pounds heavier than me. Let’s just say the bike ride didn’t work out because the weight difference caused my part of the bike to be stuck at a 45 degree angle, unable to be pedaled by my 4 foot-something frame.

So now that you know this about tandem bikes, my fiancé and I rode through my home buying experience rather smoothly, but then the weight difference would set in – whoever thought I’d be so turned off by a banister? And who knew my soon-to-be husband had a burning hate for certain kinds of shrubs? What’s important to you isn’t always important to your partner – what you see as fixable, could be unbearable for someone else.

Okay, so enough with the bike metaphors (but aren't metaphors just so darn fun?). The important takeaway from all of this is that buying a home is an interesting, stressful, exciting, scary and overwhelming experience. It’s an experience that has really opened my eyes and one that I’m happy I’ve had the opportunity to have, but if you’re a first time home owner, you better be ready to take people’s opinions, disregard those same people’s OTHER opinions, and know that NO question is stupid.

As my fiancé and I approach the closing of our home, we can reflect on the bumps in the road, the bruises we got along the way and the times when we were just not thinking at the same speed, but with those moments behind us, we can now plan on just cruising to the finish... ding ding!